Espana La Mejor

Today we spent a lovely, and sunshiny day in Valencia Spain. Famous for a few things: oranges, lemons and Ernest Hemmingway…apparently.  

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this stop as it was the one stop I did the least amount of research on. There wasn’t much to discover about Valencia that I could tell. And now after a day here I can understand why. It’s a small-ish city (well third largest in Spain but it feels small) and somewhat unassuming. They have quite a history but nothing overly interesting about their history.  

We took the “Explore Valencia” excursion today. The tour started by driving down their beautiful public beach – the name I forget – it was a wide, sandy beach that looked very inviting to go and sit on the sand. From there we drove through the streets and our guide pointed out some of the more important historic buildings.  

I think the most interesting thing – historically – is that they had a major river running through the city, but it caused problems with flooding so they moved it. How they moved it I have no idea the guide didn’t really say. But now this river bed is a beautiful park that runs the length of the city limits.

Our next stop was an area designed to promote science and culture. The unique and futuristic designs of the buildings I found fascinating and could have easily spent another hour there with my camera.  The City of Arts & Science houses a museum of the sciences, a “hemispheric” dome that is their Imax – it looks like an eye ball sticking out of the water, and lastly their opera house.  He rattled off some famous opera singer who performs there on a regular basis.  

Leaving that stop we took off to the historical center of Valencia. This is where the tour got very interesting to me. The guide dropped us off for some free time in the Central Market. This market dad would have loved. In fact, we never would have gotten him out of there. It had all sorts of meats, cheeses, vegetables, fruits, spices, anything you could imagine. And it was massive.  We had only 30 minutes there and somehow I needed to taste freshly squeezed Valencia orange juice, go pee, buy some olives, and buy some Spanish ham AND take photos in 30 minutes.

I managed. 

But let me tell you about that freshly squeezed Valencia orange juice…oh my goodness. Probably the best orange juice I’ve had in a long time. When the guy came over to ask mom and I if we needed help, I literally, jumped into Spanish speaking mode. Mom looked at me kinda surprised, and me too for that matter. We got our orange juice and walked away and I said to mom, “I’m not sure where that Spanish came from but it just came out.” Turns out all those years of school and something did stick.  

After the orange juice, I asked the guy where the bathrooms were. He pointed and said, let me give you a receipt. Apparently you had to buy something in the market to use their bathrooms. So down stairs we go with our receipt to a gal sitting in front of the bathrooms that have turn styles. No lie. She handed both mom and I a token and pointed. We put our token in, the light turn greened, a little bell rang, I pushed through and I was in the ladies bathroom. Very odd to me, but interesting.  

Back upstairs we found a meat shop selling Spanish ham and salami’s. The owner let us taste some of the ham and I was hooked. We bought two packs of it to bring back to the ship for happy hour.   

Then we found the olives. They were giving samples too. I think mom and I ate one of all of them. Sooo good.  We bought two types and it was all I could do to NOT eat them on the bus on the way home. They, along with the ham, were a big success at happy hour tonight.  

Do you know about happy hour? Have I explained it?  

Happy hour started many cruises ago with Mom, Dad, Jack and Suzi.  They decided that every night they’d bring their drinks and any snacks to one of their rooms and they’d have happy hour before dinner.  It’s a great tradition really. Everyone gets together and talks about what they did all day, eat a little appetizers (or whatever we scavenged from the buffet upstairs), drink a little wine, and just enjoy the moment.  

So after the olives purchase it was time to meet back up with our guide. Jorge was our guide today and he was a charming Spanish man who could whistle but could not play any instruments…or so he told us.  

We walked the historical center and went through the Silk Exchange (La Lonja) building where business was done in Valencia for years until they recently moved to a more modern building. But the gothic style of this building was breathtaking. The ceilings were carved wood and were stunning. One ceiling was carved wood with gold enlay in it…it was beautiful. Jorge did tell us it wasn’t the original ceiling in that part of the building. Apparently the ceiling was in a historic landmark that the government decided to destroy and was going to burn down. Some activists got together and saved the ceiling and moved it to the Silk Exchange building to preserve it. Thank heavens they did. It was beautiful. 

We walked through several squares today and eventually we found ourselves in a “round square”. When Jorge said we had one more square to see (they were all starting to look the same) I was somewhat surprised to see this square was round.  This “square” was for textiles and had several Spanish women sitting around in circles doing needle work with silk. Some were making laces, some doing pictures on material, but all of it was beautiful and the craftsmanship was unbelievable.  

We left the round square for the cathedral in Valencia. This cathedral – from what I could understand – was “owned” by many different religious groups at one time or another. So there were parts of this cathedral that were jewish, part built by the moors and part built by the Christians. The outside certainly looked like it was a combination of cultures. I didn’t venture inside – first because it cost 5EU and second because we were hungry and we had about 30 minutes of free time.  

Mom and I found a little café, plopped ourselves down and ordered ham and cheese sandwiches. I ordered a Fanta and mom ordered Sangria.  My Fanta was a normal size Fanta, but mom’s sangria was huge. She slurped that thing down so quickly I wasn’t sure I wasn’t going to have to carry her to the bus. The ham and cheese sandwiches were made with Spanish ham, thick cut and cured. It was, in my opinion, delicious, but almost like jerky. The cheese and bread though…wow…such a good combination. I wish there was a way to really share the flavors in this blog.

We finished up early today and were back on the ship by 1pm. We both were thankful for some down time. I certainly don’t want to complain about all the places we’re seeing, but it does feel like we’re in a sprint.  We’ve hit 3 countries in 4 days.

I’m sad to report that I did not get my gelato today. We saw some, but I was too full from the ham sandwich to even consider eating it. And they didn’t have Nutella as a flavor. Maybe tomorrow.

Tonight we branched off and had dinner at one of the specialty restaurants on the ship. They cost a little extra, but it’s worth it to me. The food starts to all taste the same by this time of the cruise. So tonight we chose to do the Brazilian steak house. I think I must have had at least 14 oz of meat tonight. I didn’t bother with any of the sides or a salad before. I wanted to save myself for the meat. I think we had 10 different types of meat: Chicken breasts wrapped in bacon, chicken thighs marinated in lime, Spanish chorizo, Linguisa sausage, lamb legs, filet mignon, garlic marinated beef, sirloin, pork ribs, beef ribs, and finally grilled pineapple. And then they asked if we wanted dessert. Ugh. But the meats were so flavorful and delicious if I wasn’t so full I’d still be eating. That Spanish chorizo in particular was my favorite. Not spicy, but full of flavor.

Tomorrow we’re in Majorca Spain. A small island off the coast of Spain.  Dad had wanted to me to go to school in Majorca when we were choosing which boarding school to attend.  I think he wanted me to go there just for the olives, wine and all around Spanish culture. We shall see what Majorca has to offer us tomorrow.

And then we have a blessed day at sea.  A day of rest if you will. All our excursions have left by 8am so far, which means up and to breakfast by 7am.

Hasta Luego!